Page 34 of The Hitman

Giulio leads me through the vineyard, and for a few seconds, I feel as if I’m in someone else’s body. We move toward the front of the property and dash from the vines into a small copse of olive trees. He stops and turns toward me. He looks me over from head to toe, but not in the erotic way he did yesterday or this morning. This look is assessing, almost clinical.

He shrugs his coat from his shoulders. “Put this on,” he says and then helps me push my arms into the jacket. “Wait here.”

“Don’t leave me,” I blurt out.

His hands smooth over my shoulders. He squeezes firmly but gently. “I’m just going to get a cart. You can watch me. I will return as quickly as possible. Si?”

I nod, even though I’m still not sure about this. I watch him like a hawk as he turns away from me. I see the holster at his back and the gun, and I realize that he’s had that on all day, even when he was touching me just a few moments ago. I fixate on the straps of the holster, not the gun, as he walks casually toward the small bank of golf carts near the winery entrance.

I tell time by the sound of my own pulse in my ears.

There are four golf carts lined up near the entrance. I wonder where the drivers have gone. Casually, I watch as Giulio checks each of the carts. He’s looking for keys.

I wrap my arms around myself and am immediately surrounded by the soft scent of his cologne. It calms me, even though I’m terrified that someone will dart out of the trees and tackle him, or I’ll hear a loud blast break the strange silence surrounding us, and the next thump I hear will be Giulio’s body hitting the dirt.

But none of that happens. In a few minutes, Giulio is slipping behind the wheel of one of the carts. He turns it on and backs it out of the parking spot and heads toward the entrance.

For a brief moment, I’m terrified that he’ll drive away without me until the cart pulls to a stop, and he turns to me. “Come, tesora,” he says.

Even my horny lizard brain doesn’t react to that, which is another sign that I might be in shock.

I don’t run, because I really shouldn’t be running in these shoes. Also, my feet hurt, and I’m terrified that I’ll fall and break my ankle. I sigh in some faint echo of relief as I slip into the passenger seat next to Giulio.

I think he’s going to take off and speed back to the hotel; I want him to. But he turns to me and looks at me again. This time, I look down at myself. My formerly pristine white dress is covered in dirt and a soft spray of blood, I now realize. That broad-shouldered man’s blood.

I shudder.

“Don’t look at it,” he says definitively, a command. “Look at me.”

I do as he says immediately. And I’m not sure if it’s the shock or what, but I feel myself calm when I meet his gaze.

“I need you to help me, tesora.”

“Anything.” I mean, he just saved my life, what am I going to say, no?

I watch as he shrugs out of his holster and wraps the straps around his gun. “I need you to hold this — hide it — just until we get back to the hotel.”

I suck in a deep breath and nod. Carefully, Giulio places his gun in my lap. It feels hot, but I’m pretty certain that that’s just a figment of my imagination.

He places my hands carefully over the gun. “Don’t look at this either,” he tells me.

So I don’t. I raise my head and stare forward as he buttons his coat closed so that no one else can see — including me — that I’m covered in dirt and blood or the gun in my lap. It sounds strange, but as soon as the coat is buttoned closed, I make myself forget.

Is that what shock is? Or is this a coping mechanism? Either way, I like having someone tell me what to do, so I don’t have to think.

“Hold on,” he tells me.

Okay, correction, I like when he gives me clear commands. “Hold on” is unclear. I turn to him and feel myself frown so hard my jaw hurts.

He smiles. It’s not the warm smile he gave me this morning, or the seductive grin he leveled at me as he slipped his hand under the hem of my dress, or even the rueful smile, from just before my world was flipped upside down — again. This smile is playful. “Hold on to me,” he corrects as if he can read my mind.

And so, I do. I take one hand from his gun and wrap it around his bicep, holding onto him as if my life depends on it because I think it does.

The ride back to the hotel takes another ten minutes. Giulio doesn’t speed back to the safety of the hotel. He doesn’t court any undue attention. I wish he would speed, but I don’t think I have the energy to tell him that, so I concentrate on not letting the gun fall from my lap or my grip on his arm loosen. My hands are full — literally — so I let him make the big decisions for the moment.

But still, I wonder at how normal the world seems as we drive back. Doesn’t anyone know what happened in the vineyard? Didn’t anyone hear the gunshot?

Am I going crazy?

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